Yoga For People Over 50

If you’ve never done yoga before, the thought of starting over age 50 may seem daunting. However, yoga is far from being a “one size fits all” type of activity, as you can modify it to fit your needs without hassle.

In fact, everyone should be performing yoga, especially as you age; since it can play an important role in helping you maintain flexibility and strength through a range of low impact movements.

Strengthening the bones, muscles and increasing your flexibility skills improves mobility in aging, one of the key considerations for all adults heading into their seniors years.

Yoga is also an excellent mind-body exercise that greatly lowers stress, which is a culprit in numerous chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, obesity and even dementia conditions, such as Alzheimer’s.

Even better yet, yoga is free, as you do not require expensive equipment, and can be done in the comfort of your home. Not sure where to start? Join a yoga class, or hire a personal yoga trainer.

Here are some of the best yoga poses for healthier aging, incorporate these into your routine to get maximum benefits of yoga:

The Warrior Pose

The warrior pose is a great standing pose that helps increase the strength of the leg muscles, as well as improving bone density (as standing is known for doing). In addition, this pose also boosts flexibility in the hip region and inner thighs.

To perform:

• Stand with feet shoulder-distance apart, with arms down to the sides.

• Turn to one side, and step your foot out about 3 to 4 feet, on the same side. Rotate your foot about 90 degrees.

• Raise your arms while inhaling, to shoulder height.

• Exhale, and simultaneously bend the outstretched leg to a position as close to parallel to the floor as possible.

• Keep your other leg straight, and hold the pose for 30 seconds.

• Repeat with the other leg.

The Bridge

The bridge pose is extremely popular, owing to its benefits of strengthening the lower back muscles and hips. The bridge pose may be particularly useful for persons with lower back pain, or those who spent much of their lives at a desk job.

To perform:

• Lie on a stable surface (the floor preferably) with your back and feet flat on the floor and bend your knees. Keep arms to your sides.

• Press hands into the floor as you breathe in.

• Exhale and contract abdominal muscles as you simultaneously push your hips and butt off of the floor.

• At the top position, your back and upper legs should form a 45-degree angle, resembling a “bridge.”

• Hold for 30 seconds and then slowly return to the start position.

Legs Up A Wall

This pose is beneficial for stretching the hamstring muscles, similar to bending over but without the stress on the lower back muscles. This pose is also useful for persons with poor circulation, as it drains blood flow from the legs and recirculates it through the heart.

To perform:

• Sit on the floor with legs close to a wall.

• Shift your body so that your legs are up the wall, bracing the back of your feet against the wall.

• If you are unable to stretch your feet in that position, move your hips away from the wall a bit, and place the bottom of your feet on the wall.

• Stretch your hamstrings for a period of 30 seconds, then slowly take your feet off the wall.

The Tree Pose

If there was one pose representing yoga in all its glory, it would be the tree pose. At the core of the tree pose’s benefits is improving balance, very important in healthy aging to help prevent falls and tumbles, since falls are the one cause of injury in the aging population.

To perform:

• Stand with feet together, and hands with palms together, overhead.

• If this is your first time, raise one leg slightly up, so that toes are gently touching the ground but with the heel touching the ankle of the next leg.

• Stay balances in this position for approximately 30 seconds.

• Repeat with another leg.

As your balance improves, raise your toes and heel higher so that your non-working leg is fully bent at the knee.
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5 Smart Weight Loss Decisions

Weight loss is hard right? Well, in a way- yes. But really it shouldn’t be, at least with a little planning, and a lot of smart decisions. 

As humans, we tend to know what constitutes a smart decision, and a decision that leaves a lot to be desired. When it comes to weight loss, we seem to get stuck on making “less than ideal decisions.”

So where does that leave us? Well, you could keep doing what you always do, and get the results you always do. Or, you can institute some smart decisions- choices that will improve your life for the long haul.

Let’s dive right in!

Choose To Move More Everyday

Burning calories is the name of the game when it comes to sustainable weight loss, regardless of if you need to lose 1 or 100 pounds. Not a fan of the gym? Not an excuse. There are simple decisions you can make that can have a profound effect on your weight loss efforts. For example, how about walking a few extra flights of stairs on your way to the office? 

Maybe you work on the 10th floor, so why not stop off at the 7th and walk the rest? You need to make deliberate decisions if weight loss is your goal. It does not come about by mere chance. 

Likewise, take a stop a few blocks away from home and walk your way home. The afternoon is likely to be cooler than the morning, so the sun should not be a valid excuse. 

Worried about winter? Do some activity at home. An extremely effective exercise that does not require expensive equipment is the step up. Simply remove the cushion out of your sofa and perform as many repetitions as you are comfortable with. Small changes equate to big differences.

Go No Soda

Yes, you read correctly- no soda. No regular, and definitely- NO DIET. Soda in every form is bad, regardless of what the money hungry manufacturers’ claim. Sure, diet may be free of calories, but that does not mean it is free of adverse effects. 

In fact, many of the low sugar alternatives found in diet soda can hasten your development of metabolic syndrome, which is worse than diabetes alone. Water needs to become the main beverage in your weight loss arsenal, but that does not mean it has to be bland. You are free to use coffee, tea, fruit infused water and more- just be sure you keep an eye on the sugar content.

Load Your Plate With Veggies

Love broccoli? Great! Then make it the cornerstone of your plate. Who cares how it looks? You definitely won’t in a few weeks when you see your body change dramatically. The rule is to load up on your favorite veggies, as they are typically low calorie, then follow with your protein of choice (meat, frequently), and finally maybe a little sweet potato or rice. The carbs are optional of course, as restricting them altogether is the fastest way to achieve weight loss.

Go To Sleep Sooner

You know the hundreds of benefits of sleep by now, but here’s one you don’t think of often; reducing caloric intake. The later you stay awake, the more likely you are to snack. Unnecessary snacking, more so late at night, can spoil a hard day of work and leave you moody as an extra bonus (ha! Really).

Make Meal Prep A Ritual

Fastest way to sabotage a diet plan? Hunger. Yes, when you’re hungry you don’t give too hoots about healthy, as long as it fills you. To compensate, make a decent amount of meals and freeze them in your favorite Tupperware. That way, when you need food, it’s just a microwave session away, and your weight loss plan will remain intact.

What Are Metabolic Conditioning Workouts And What They Do

Metabolic conditioning workouts, which are also referred to as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) teach the body to access energy stores effectively during and after a workout. These workouts consist of lifting moderate to heavy weights or performing calisthenics in sets with targeted timed recovery breaks. This style of exercise elevates the heart rate quickly, adding a cardio component to the strength training regimen and causes the body to burn fat rapidly.

How Do They Work?

The body accesses energy based on the activity being performed. There are rapid, moderate, and slow energy burning modes within the metabolism. Metabolic Conditioning activates them synchronistically to maximize caloric burn.

Quick Energy

Power exercises, which are performed quickly, 10 seconds or less, utilize the creatine phosphate pathway to supply the body’s energy needs. Directing a lot of energy quickly to perform this type of exercise, for example a power lift, like the clean and jerk, is very demanding. The intensity of the activity requires a longer recovery time of about three to five minutes.

Moderate Burn

Intense activities of short duration, one to four minutes, access the glycolytic pathway. Examples of activities, which activate this energy pathway, are a lifting weights and running 400m to 800m. Recovery time for this energy pathway is one to three minutes.

Slow Burn

The aerobic energy pathway is the one most discussed and best understood by the average person. It supports activities of easy to moderate intensity. This energy pathway draws on stored fat cells to fuel the body’s activities. It can engage for hours. The rich fuel source of this energy pathway, fat cells, means its recovery time measures in seconds.

The variety  of exercises involved in a Metabolic Conditioning workout, the level of intensity applied to them and the duration of recovery  periods determines which energy pathway becomes activated. The objective of the exercises in a given session also determines the recovery period allowed for each exercise.

For example, doing bicep curls with a low weight but high repetitions will access the aerobic or slow burn pathway. Since the objective of this type of workout is to keep the body in an adaptive mode, all of the energy pathways become engaged at some point during the workout.

Results

Metabolic Conditioning workouts can be crafted to maximize desired outcomes: weight loss and fat burning, muscle growth, improved speed, power or endurance. They also provide faster results, because they apply knowledge of the body's energy systems strategically.

Work and rest ratios should be applied to ensure the desired results:

Objective: Improve power

Focus: creatine phosphate pathway

Work to rest ratio: 1:10

Objective: Improve sports performance

Focus: creatine phosphate pathway

Work to rest ratio: 1:2

Objective: Improve endurance performance

Focus: aerobic pathway

Work to rest ratio: 4:1

Objective: Burn body fat

Focus: targets the creatine phosphate and aerobic pathways

Work to rest ratio: 1:2 and 3:1 workouts each performed once a week

Creating A Workout

Creating a workout is pretty straightforward. For example, weighted squats for power performance would be performed for 10 seconds followed by 1.5 to 2 minutes of rest. Three more power-building exercises, plyometric jumps, broad jumps and plyometric push-ups, would follow to form a circuit; each of the exercises would be completed with the same work to rest ratio. One set of all exercises included in a session forms a circuit. The circuit is usually completed 3 to 4 times. 

Implementing Metabolic Conditioning Workouts

Metabolic Conditioning must be done at least two to three times per week to see results. This approach to exercise activates all three of the body’s energetic pathways during one workout. It is this component of the workout, which makes it so effective.

In addition, the post workout calorie burn associated with these types of workouts last up to 36 hours following exercise and that is what makes this type of workout routine one of the best choices for burning fat. The workout needs to include 3 to 4 exercises performed in sets based on time intervals with energy pathway based recovery times.

These are intensive workouts and not ideal for beginners who should take care and work up to the fitness level required to perform them. It is also important to check with your doctor before starting this type of fitness routine. While they are intensive, their effectiveness and results they provide from very short sessions of exercise make the effort totally worthwhile.

Sample workouts are widely available in fitness forums, online, on workout DVDs, and in magazines. 

What Is Functional Fitness And Its Importance For People Of All Ages

Functional training, also referred to as functional exercise is any workout that adapts or develops exercises that allow individuals to perform activities of everyday life more easily and without risk of injury.

The truth is that just because you can lift heavy at the gym and do 20 minutes of HIIT every other day, does not mean that the next time you lift your 65 pound suitcase on your way to the airport that you won’t throw your back out.

Functional fitness focuses on training the body in such a way that it can handle day to day real life activities, like lugging groceries, picking up kids and others.

So, instead of focusing on lifting a certain amount of weight, or the proper form of a particular exercise, functional fitness trains us to become better at real life positions and to perform everyday activities that we are all tasked with.

Muscles Working Together

Your typical weight training or strength training workout isolates specific muscles, but, neglects to train the body to use multiple muscle groups together, but, functional exercise does integrate different muscles and through proper form and motion teaches them to work together.

This yields an overall fitness to the entire body working in unison.

Finding Balance

While many focus on weights, weight machines and compound exercises, they neglect to address a fundamental need we humans have for day to day life and that is balance.

Balance training exercises, like the one legged squat is more useful for everyday life than leg pressing 500 pounds.

Why?

Because stability is what serves you in everyday life, like when you have to reach for something in a high cabinet, or walking up and down stairs.

Balance is an integral part of everyday life, including, regular tasks of walking, using the stairs and reaching for something, but, it goes beyond that.

Did you know that a balance system that functions properly can help humans to see clearly while moving, orient themselves in terms of gravity, assess direction and speed of movement, and also allows them to make adjustments to posture and stability while doing daily activities.

Training your body to control and balance its own weight can serve you when you are young and as you age because it makes you stronger, more stable and therefore allows you to avoid falls, which, are some of the most common injuries seen in seniors.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 3 adults age 65 or older suffer a fall that results in moderate to severe injuries, including, the debilitating hip fracture or the very serious head trauma, both of which can increase the risks of early death.

Avoiding Compensation

One of the drawbacks of typical strength training workouts is that they leave isolated weakness in the body that then becomes detrimental in day to day movement.

While you strengthen certain muscles, like the arms and shoulders, you may inadvertently neglect to train others and that creates a pattern of compensation, which, means that when you use them together to perform daily activities one works harder than the other and that type of strain can cause injury.

Functional exercises teach isolated muscles to work together and thus when you pick up that suitcase, or your child, or reach for something on a high shelf you won’t tweak a weak muscle that is not properly trained.

Workouts that include, bending, pushing, pulling, lifting, sitting, reaching, balance and twisting, and those that mimic day to cay life engage the core muscles while at the same time targeting other muscles of the body providing an overall “functional” state of fitness.

There Is More

Functional training goes beyond the above to mitigate bone loss through movements that support body weight and that helps to prevent osteoporosis.

The multi-joint, multi-plane movements engage the body’s stabilizers that help to improve coordination, challenge the brain and ultimately serve you to cope with your day to day activities to become more functional.

Components Of Functional Workouts

There are several elements to functional workouts that make them that much more effective. These need to be adapted to each individual's goals and needs.

• The workouts should be directed toward one’s specific everyday life activities.

• Individualized programs that tailor to the specific goals and needs of an individual. For example, specific exercises that are made for someone age 60 who wants to avoid falls, any adult looking to improve their day to day activity performance, or an athlete training in a specific sport or someone who is in physical therapy and retraining their body. No matter the circumstance, the workouts should focus on meaningful tasks.

• The overall state of health of the individual should be considered when assessing the types of exercises to use and the overall training load.

• There should be a well-integrated program that includes power, strength, balance, and core exercises that focus on multiple movement planes.

• The training should progress with increasing difficulty.

• The training should include varying tasks.

• Functional training should be repeated regularly on an ongoing basis.

• Feedback as to progression is needed either through self-assessment or the assessment of a trainer or physical therapist.

Examples Of Functional Exercises

• Any exercise that involves standing on two feet and supporting yourself while lifting any type of weight is typically a functional exercise. You can really do this at home just by repeating activities that mimic the above.

• Balance Exercises - Various balance exercises without weights that teach the body to stabilize itself.

• Exercise Ball – The greatest benefit to training using ball exercises is that they target the core muscles that are vital for stability and good posture. There are many different moves with the ball.

• BOSU Ball – As opposed to the exercise ball, a BOSU has a round side and a flat side. The BOSU makes any exercise a lot more challenging because it adds an element of instability to each workout as it forces you to use the core to remain steady. BOSU workouts also work to improve strength and help muscles learn to work together that prevents injury in real life.

• Bent Over Row - works the back, shoulder and arm muscles and mimics life activities. Think about bending over to make the bed, a mechanic bending to repair a car, a carpenter bending over a saw table, bending over to plug in electronics, even bending down to get something from a low shelf and many more. Much more useful when compared to a seated row, where you are only working the chest and arms, and your body is not activating its core stabilizer muscles, and therefore, it is not learning to use those muscles together because the machine is doing the work.

• Stand On One Leg (you can start by holding onto a chair at first, then work to doing it on your own)

• One Legged Squat

• Lift Off

• Single Leg Deadlift

• Medicine Ball Squat With Overhead Lift

• Medicine Ball Reach

• Multidirectional Lunges

• Standing Bicep Curls

• Step-Ups With Weights

• Dumbbell Lunge

• Lunge With Back Row

• Deadlift

• Powerclean

• Overhead Press

• Front Squats

• Chin Ups and Pull Ups

• Kettlebell or Dumbbell Swing

• Planks

• Many more

How To Get Started With Functional Fitness

The truth is that functional exercises, like other full body workouts are more difficult than machines, as they are more demanding on the body.

If you are over 40 or have health problems you should check with your doctor before starting functional or any other exercise program. Women are pregnant should check with their doctors as well.

When starting functional training it’s best to begin with bodyweight exercises instead of using weights. You can add weights as you get more fit because they will add resistance and, therefore, challenge your body.

Those who are experienced fitness buffs can certainly engage in intermediate and advanced level moves in functional training. These types of exercises can be added into a regular workout routine.

It’s important to note that many functional moves have other benefits and target other fitness goals, such as, strength training, fat burning and heart health, so choosing a specific functional exercise in lieu of say using a weight machine kills two birds with one stone.

It is important to learn proper form, and there are lots of videos and resources online that can help.

Hiring a personal trainer to teach you some moves is another great way to get started. They can be very helpful with showing you proper form and also for creating a customized workout plan based on your needs and lifestyle.

Final Thoughts

It is never too late to get started with improving your stability and balance that will serve you in your everyday life.

Get functional, stay strong!

Get started today!

Best Exercises For A Healthy Back

Back pain plagues millions of US citizens over the course of their lifetime. Back pain can be due to repetitive strain on the back, an acute injury to the back, bony wear and tear on the back or even from simple fatigue. Some experience back pain because they work in a sitting job and the back is weakened due to lack of exercise.

Many cases of back pain can be avoided by exercising your back in a healthy way that strengthens the muscles and ligaments so that back pain will not be a problem again.

Strengthen The Core

The back is not the only thing that keeps your body upright. Your abdomen, together with your back, represents the “core” of your body. Both parts need to be functioning in order for you to have the ability to stand, stretch, and bend appropriately.

Perhaps one of the best exercises for a healthy back includes abdominal exercises. A weak abdomen puts too much pressure on the back to take on functions the abdomen needs to participate in.

Abdominal exercises strengthen the overall core and will help you have a strong and healthy back.

What abdominal exercises work best?

Something as simple as sit ups can help strengthen the abdominal muscles so that the core is strengthened. The exercises can be done in several ways to strengthen the upper, middle and body muscles. For example:

• Sit ups with your legs straight—this strengthens the upper abdominal muscles

• Sit ups with your legs bent—this strengthens the middle abdominal muscles

• Lying down and lifting your feet off the floor—this strengthens the lower abdominal muscles

Try to do these three kinds of sit-ups in different sets of ten at a time and you will have a strong core that will help your back keep your body strong. As mentioned, you should do sets of ten of each of the three types of exercises and do about ten sets a day. This involves about three hundred different exercises that may make your abdomen sore for a day or so.  

Pilates

Pilates is another core strengthening form of exercise. Pilates is best learned through a DVD lesson or personalized lessens from a Pilates instructor. It is a toning type of exercise that strengthens the core, including the abdominal and back muscles. The exercises are easily learned and can be a part of your daily exercise routine.  

Simple Back Exercises

You can strengthen the back alone although most exercises that strengthen the back also strengthen the abdominal muscles as well. Either way, you have a healthier back as a result.

Leg Lifts

One simple back strengthening exercise involves lying prone (on your stomach) and lifting your leg straight up a few inches off the ground. Do one leg at a time.

Ideally, you should do sets of ten backward leg lifts at a time before switching legs. Do several sets each day to strengthen the back.

 

Back Exercise Machines

There are machines you can use health club that isolate the back muscles. They involve sitting in a chair of sorts that bends backwards when you straighten out your back so you are in a lying position.